Stakeholders urged to re-strategize
ECHOING the results of a skills gap report cybersecurity platform Fortinet recently released, Secuna, a local “community-powered” cybersecurity testing platform, is urging startups, enterprises, and the government to re-strategize in order to determine, and overcome the forecasted shortage of cybersecurity talents in the country.
“Cybersecurity is a responsibility, not just a list of regulations and compliances to check off in order to claim that they are secure and compliant. The corporate sector and government have to review their assets for any security gaps and take measures to eliminate known vulnerabilities before cybercriminals could exploit them,” AJ Dumanhug, CEO and co-founder of Secuna said as he highlighted how only a few companies seem to be prioritizing cybersecurity.
Dumanhug also pointed out how the difficulty in complying with regulations and receiving certifications, or the lack an in-house cybersecurity workforce are seen as gaps that need to be sealed. The skill shortage will more likely lead to oversights in processes, increased threats in the network, and lesser time to conduct proper risk assessment and management.
“The first line of defense is awareness. With the rising threat of cybercrime activities, it is most important that we reconsider and create new strategies to recognize vulnerabilities and their warning signs to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals,” he added.
Since its inception, Secuna has chosen the path of helping startups, enterprises, and the local government by connecting them to the most advanced and highly-vetted cybersecurity professionals to simulate cyberattacks. This simulation now exposes security flaws that real-world malicious hackers can exploit and leverage to gain access to their IT systems. It also allows continuously ensuring compliance with security and functional safety standards.
The cybersecurity firm recently obtained a renewal of Certification for Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) from the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT), providing a high level of security assessment services designed to identify vulnerabilities and help address cyber security risks.
With this certification, it has revolutionized the vulnerability assessment and penetration testing model to enable organizations to improve vulnerability management and remediation processes, better understand and reduce risk, manage the evolving attack surface, and leverage automation to enable manual “pen-testing” to find business-critical vulnerabilities that tools alone cannot uncover. Being a crowdsourced, community-platform, Secuna has a roster of cybersecurity experts and ethical hackers with a contextual understanding “of challenges faced here and those who possess the right knowledge and background.”
“Secuna’s platform-driven, human delivered approach to offensive cybersecurity provides an opportunity for organizations to think strategically about their proactive security efforts and tap into this pool of ethical hackers who can help solve the impact brought about by the scarcity of in-house cybersecurity talents,” he noted emphasizing how his company provides a managed service that helps in setting-up ISO-compliant Security Vulnerability Disclosure Program and Bug Bounty Program to receive and act on vulnerabilities discovered by cybersecurity professionals.
Some of Secuna’s notable clients include Dashlabs, QuadX, UBx, Kumu, Paymongo, and Palawan Express.
